Sad to see this one go, but looking forward to the next one. Especially if it's a Colonial Wars, Aftermath or NATO vs Soviets campaign remake... 

Quote from: Vivalas on December 19, 2023, 12:04:49 PM

I have a hard time roleplaying peaceful nations early on since I need to find pretense to make weapons, so I just added a pirate player faction with some rules for them, but the new raider stuff seems neat for that as well.

I think it's not too hard to justify weapons, after all, "if you want peace prepare for war" is a common and arguably correct saying. IMHO, the harder part of playing peacefully is that NPR diplomacy is very limited, even if you find relatively peaceful NPRs there is no way to get them to recognize or negotiate borders, for instance, besides claiming a system and hoping they will accept the claim. Pretty much any more complex treaty is right out, nor can there be some coordination of fleets between allies.

With multiple player races this is all a moot point, of course, but I do dream of a more complex NPR diplomacy system someday...

Yeah I understand all that, it's not so much from the "peaceful among other nations" but more about first contact. Once I find ruins or precursors or such it's bets off, which can some takes a surprisingly long time. But I think it would be a bit strange if we developed warp drive tomorrow and immediately starting strapping lasers to our space probes, given what we currently know about the universe.

I have a hard time roleplaying peaceful nations early on since I need to find pretense to make weapons, so I just added a pirate player faction with some rules for them, but the new raider stuff seems neat for that as well.

I think it's not too hard to justify weapons, after all, "if you want peace prepare for war" is a common and arguably correct saying. IMHO, the harder part of playing peacefully is that NPR diplomacy is very limited, even if you find relatively peaceful NPRs there is no way to get them to recognize or negotiate borders, for instance, besides claiming a system and hoping they will accept the claim. Pretty much any more complex treaty is right out, nor can there be some coordination of fleets between allies.

With multiple player races this is all a moot point, of course, but I do dream of a more complex NPR diplomacy system someday...

I wasn't expecting 2.4 today, best Christmas gift ever, thank you Steve!

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on December 18, 2023, 11:41:20 AM

Quote from: Steve Walmsley on December 18, 2023, 11:22:20 AM

I'm probably not going to continue this campaign now, but I will leave it up for the ship designs, etc. I played about seven years and it allowed me to test the v2.4.0 changes, but never seemed to really take off.

I suspected that would be an issue with the great dispersion of the NPRs. Perhaps even more so with the increased size of the Real Stars database.

I met a second NPR and the Raiders, but the second NPR (Andorians) was peaceful and the first one (Tellarites) was easily beaten back into its home system, so I had several years of just building up colonies but no real challenge or threat. It happens quite often that I just lose the enthusiasm for a campaign and move on. I will likely come back to this though, as I have done quite a lot of background work. Maybe I'll go and try something unusual - like WH40K?

My personal feeling is that 2.4 is in a great place to commit to a long multiple-player-race campaign, which is my plan over the holidays. I'm not saying you should do such a thing, but I'm not not saying you should do such a thing. 

I'm probably not going to continue this campaign now, but I will leave it up for the ship designs, etc. I played about seven years and it allowed me to test the v2.4.0 changes, but never seemed to really take off.

I suspected that would be an issue with the great dispersion of the NPRs. Perhaps even more so with the increased size of the Real Stars database.

After a quick trip to the Star Trek Wiki, I can't say I've ever heard of the Tellarites, but they sound peaceful enough - well, assuming there wasn't a Federation stronghold going up right outside their front door.

The Tellarites were one of the four founding members of the Federation, along with the Vulcans and Andorians. They were in the original series, Star Trek Enterprise and Star Trek Discovery, two of the movies (IV and VI), Picard and all three animated series (original, Lower Decks and Prodigy), although their appearance changes quite a bit between different series. They tend to be stubborn, argumentative and impatient.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tellarite

I have to agree that the Federation Council seems rather more aggressive than I'd expect - Steve, you sure you're not still roleplaying the Imperium of Man?

The Federation Council is economically aggressive, rather than militarily, which is something for which a lot of other races criticize the Federation.

After a quick trip to the Star Trek Wiki, I can't say I've ever heard of the Tellarites, but they sound peaceful enough - well, assuming there wasn't a Federation stronghold going up right outside their front door.

I have to agree that the Federation Council seems rather more aggressive than I'd expect - Steve, you sure you're not still roleplaying the Imperium of Man?